Florida voters won’t get to decide this year whether assault weapons should be banned.
A proposed ban didn’t get the 766,200 signatures needed to be placed on the ballot.
Supporters say they are now focusing on getting the question before voters in 2022. The group pushing the petition — Ban Assault Weapons Now — collected 145,000 verified signatures this past year. The deadline to meet the signature requirement for this year’s election was Feb. 1.
Floridians won’t get to vote on an assault weapons ban in 2020
Finally a good piece of news for the year. Of course, we still have all the bills in the Legislature that we need to make sure they don’t even come out of committee .
Do notice the language used by the author as if somehow evil and dark forces sabotaged the signature collection process rather that being simply they did not get enough people to believe in what they were trying to sell.
“Despite the best efforts of the NRA and politicians in Tallahassee to place obstacles in our path, we will continue our fight to save lives by working hard to ensure voters have the final say over their safety in 2022,” Gail Schwartz, Ban Assault Weapons Now’s chairwoman, said in a prepared statement.
There was issues brought forward about the movement, but at the end of the day it was simply one thing: Verified Signatures. They needed 766,200 signatures and only collected 145,000 or 19% of the needed target. I like to look at is as an 80% fail (I like round numbers.)
But disabuse yourself of the notion that they are going to sit down and take it in the chin. They will now switch their energies to the Legislature and push for the ban bill they have running.
And like always, they will be back for another bit at the apple. And will continue to attempt to get what they want. The second they win, it will become “settled law” and any attempt to use the exact same tools to fix it will be because “evil law breakers”
I’ve noticed the same thing many many times, where they keep going until they get a win, then we aren’t allowed to complain or attempt to get back what we once had.
Just what I came down here to say.
Apart from sunset provisions for all laws, my favorite wish for legislative processes is that a “pause for sanity” period is required … if legislation is defeated in a given year, there must be a substantial waiting period (2 years? 4?) before it or substantially identical legislation can be introduced again.
Mrs B. tells me I’m becoming more Heinleinan in my outlook on politics as I get older…
A couple of thoughts on their ballot initiative. First, aww what a terrible, terrible, terrible, shame (end of sarcasm).
Let them waste their time…. A ballot initiative doesn’t always mean that much in Florida. I seem to recall a ballot referendum that was passed by the voters of Florida to ban same sex marriage. That one went through the petition process, was reviewed and placed on the ballot, voted on, passed, and subsequently overturned by activist judges after a majority of Florida’s voters said otherwise!
Sooooo it seems that the will of the people, the voice of the voters really doesn’t matter. At least that is the case if you are a liberal, or member of a victim group or class (LGBTQ or Bloomie gun grabber).
Miguel you’ve said we should do something, here’s an idea, how about we start a ballot initiative for a constitutional amendment for constitutional carry / open carry in the state of Florida. Of course we can’t claim “victim status” to get the activist judges to uphold our position…. but maybe it’s worth a try.
Would love to hear your thoughts.
DJ